


Chameleon Dance

by saltstreets



Category: Hellblazer, Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, no-good punks with their no-good punk music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 02:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3340670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>their ritual post-gig duck-and-weave routine</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chameleon Dance

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always been a fan of Chas being written as able to keep up his end of the banter. Chas is spectacular.
> 
> This came into being because there’s a bunch of stuff with Chas sorta trailing after John and I thought it’d be fun to see the situation reversed in a way. So here’s the boys in their younger days; John being ineffectively seductive and Chas being tricksy.
> 
> The title is taken from Venus of the Hardsell.

“So? How were we?” John came through the door with a bang, swirling into the filthy dressing room and scattering the torn receipts and cigarette butts that formed a carpet over cracked concrete. Chas didn’t reply, choosing instead to fling a t-shirt at him. John rolled his eyes but pulled it over his head, scrawny ribs disappearing under cotton.

“You were shite. But the sort of angry shite that kids are eating up these days.”

John grinned brightly, a sunny expression out of place with the safety pins in his ears and beer-stained jeans. “Our biggest fan.”

Chas snickered slightly. “Yeah, ‘f course. But if you keep chucking your shirt off during gigs I might just lose that title to some of the less discerning ladies in the crowd.”

“I think ‘ladies’ is giving them a bit much credit, mate. There were some real _dogs_ out there tonight, Christ!”

“That’s not well in the spirit of punk there. Breaking the rules of what society says is pretty, an’ all, shagging a rough bird might do you some good.”

“Such a shallow interpretation of the most important artistic movement of our generation. I like to think it’s more about drawing attention to our shortcomings so we can fully appreciate the _potential_. For _beauty._ ”

“Yeah, says the bloke who ten minutes ago was screaming ‘fuck you Liverpool I hope you all get yer throats slit’ and throwing your shirt about.”

“Not being an artist yourself, I can’t expect you to understand,” John declared, snatching his coat off of one of the tetanus-teeming rusty hooks on the wall where he’d hung it before the show. It got hot something awful in the basement of the Hare’s Hole, especially when the place was full to bursting with drunk and screaming music appreciators, which wasn’t ideal. But the owner rented cheap and there was a makeshift backstage area with its own set of stairs up that made the transition from performance to squirming out upstairs for a post-gig pint or ten a lot easier than in some joints where you had to force your way through a crowd, most of which weren’t disinclined to telling you exactly what they’d thought of you.

“However,” John continued, scraping a hand backwards through his sweaty hair to bring back any spikes that may have been unintentionally tamed flat since he’d carefully formed them before going on, “I’ll let you redeem your ignorance by allowing you to buy the first round.”

“How generous,” Chas said dryly.

“Innit.”

Chas stepped forward with a truly impressive roll of his eyes and rearranged the collar of John’s coat, caught inside against his neck when he’d put it on. John reached up to hang his hand over Chas’s wrist on his shoulder and grinned widely. “Or perhaps you want to skip the first round in favour of moving straight to the second, at my place?”

Chas swatted at John’s hand good-naturedly. “Yeah, in your dreams, Johnny.”

“You break my heart, mate, you really do.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll get right over it with the next skirt what goes by, I’m sure.”

“Well, there you go again, assuming all them out there gazing up at me in hapless desire were wearing skirts. The trouser’d girls aside, there were quite a few lads seemed they wouldn’t be averse to getting acquainted with all of this.” John punctuated his words with an exaggerated shimmy of the waist and hips that was precariously on the line between attractive and idiotic. He grinned, hands on his hips, obviously pleased with the comment, the evening, and with himself in general.

It was hard not to roll along with John in such an exuberant mood. It was infectious, over-flowing with energy and a sort of reckless delight. Chas leaned forward slightly, so that he was speaking almost just into John’s ear, the edges of his untrimmed beard brushing lightly against John’s stubble. “Yeah,” Chas said, pitching his voice down so as not to deafen John at this proximity but also because he knew he got pleasantly rumbling at this tone, and furthermore because he knew John loved it, “Bet there were a lotta lads out there, in a place like this, what’d not be _averse_ ,” he lightly placed his hand over John’s on the latter’s waist, “to getting... _acquainted_.” John’s breath hitched and he shivered, ever so slightly with something like anticipation. Chas grinned, close enough now so although John was looking straight ahead and couldn’t see Chas’ expression, he could feel the movement against his cheek and guess at the Cheshire smirk mere centimetres from his ear.

“Yeah?” John breathed, wanting to move to look Chas in the eye but enjoying the moment too much. “You can name any of these adventurous souls?”

“Well,” Chas replied, voice now reaching ponderous tonal depths that sent the most delicious twists up John’s spine, “I think I know where you could find them.” He breathed out, soft against John’s ear and John had to bite down on a small noise scrabbling up his throat. Chas raised his other hand to the small of John’s back, lightly at first and then, suddenly, a firm push as he turned John away back towards the stage door. “They’re all out there. Go get ‘em, mate.”

“Fuckin’ _Christ_ , Chas!” John complained, all the built up anticipation rushing out in exasperation. “You- fucker!”

Chas laughed, his grin ear-to-ear, eyes honest-to-god twinkling with satisfaction at the joke. John glared. “You’re a real bastard, you know that?”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way. Now fuck on off; I’ve got to start clearing all this mess out and into the van and then I plan on getting thoroughly pissed.”

John flicked a few obscene fingers at him half-heartedly. “Well, never accuse me of not knowing when I’m unwanted,” he said aggrievedly, walking back past Chas to the door leading to the stairwell. “I’ll be up at the bar, surrounded by young men and women with better taste than you, Chas Chandler.”

“Save the crocodile tears for when you tell your next flame the Constantine Life Story, variation six. I’ll be out in half a sec, if you’re not overrun by admirers by then.”

“Yeah, I’ll save you a seat. And one of the less pretty ones.”

“Didn’t I already say I wasn’t interested in you?”

“Oi, sod off! That was low.”

“Sorry mate, but you walked right into that one. Couldn’t pass it up.”

“You’re buying the first _two_ rounds now, to sooth my wounded pride.” John turned with a dramatic flourish and stepped out, closing the door with a rickety slam behind him.

Chas laughed quietly to himself, hefting up an amp to his shoulder along with a few coils of wiring and heading towards the exit. One of these times, he thought, their little ritual post-gig duck-and-weave dance routine would end up somewhere other than drinking half the bar and stumbling back to their respective homes. It was bound to happen. It’d been going on too long, with too little real reservation on either side, for something _not_ to happen.

But tonight: cheap pints and John probably getting either punched or slapped but nonetheless at the end of it, laid, and Chas perhaps back to his place with some girl, he wouldn’t remember in the morning when she’d tactfully slipped out, he never seemed to get the ones that stuck around wanted or not, as John got like flies to honey. Chas always attracted the kind of girl with far more wile than himself. Which frankly, explained John right down to his scuff-toed boots.

It was probably- well. If ever there was a powder keg set to go off, this was it. But not tonight.

But not tonight.


End file.
